Cocktail AI Initiative: Piloting AI Process and Workflow Evolution at Scale

Role: Sr. Digital Designer – Web & Display

Timeline: March 2024 – Ongoing (18+ months)

Context: 78% increase in web requests, 202% increase in display requests, 4% budget cut

The Perfect Storm

By early 2024, Total Wine & More's Digital Creative team was drowning. Web requests had jumped 78%, display requests shot up 202%, and our budget got slashed 4%. Meanwhile, spirits sales were driving company growth (up 18% compared to wine's 4% decline), with cocktail customers representing 22% of that spirits revenue growth.

The business response? More cocktail landing pages. Aggressive monthly pushes for "Easy Margaritas," "Gin Cocktails," "The New Old Fashioned"—all outside normal project planning timelines. We needed bespoke visual experiences that stock photography couldn't deliver, but photoshoots weren't realistic given our volume and budget constraints.

Traditional creative processes weren't going to cut it. We needed to innovate or risk missing a major business opportunity.

The AI Experiment

When Digital Merchandising briefed cocktail landing pages in March 2024—an off-cadence, post-brief-turn-in request—I decided to test MidJourney AI for image generation. This wasn't officially sanctioned experimentation, more of a "better to ask forgiveness than permission" approach to solve an immediate capacity problem.

The initial test focused on "Easy Margaritas" and "Cocktail Guide" landing pages. MidJourney's strength wasn't speed (despite what everyone assumes about AI), but creative flexibility. While a basic prompt like "three frozen margaritas" might work, crafting useful imagery required specificity: camera settings, lighting directions, aspect ratios (--ar), style references (--sref), and exclusions (--no).

I spent considerable time curating reference images and refining prompts. The default 1:1 aspect ratio was useless for our hero modules (2000x350px) and display components. Every generated image still needed significant Photoshop work—complex lighting adjustments, bottle recoloring, masking, and correcting AI oddities like weird glass shapes and obviously-generated fruits.

The reality check came fast. After hitting the brief 100% for Easy Margaritas, Digital Merchandising stakeholders rejected the aesthetic. This triggered a broader initiative around proper creative briefing led by our Sr. Digital Creative Manager and VP of Creative Operations—a problem that had been brewing for months finally got addressed.

Organic Adoption and Workflow Evolution

While leadership tackled briefing processes, my successful second attempt with AI-generated imagery caught the team's attention. The "Easy Margaritas" page achieved a 5.3% conversion rate with 47% higher revenue per visit than existing cocktail pages. "Cocktail Guide" performed even better—6.2% conversion rate and 61% RPV increase compared to the 15-month-old previous version.

Rather than formal rollout, adoption spread organically. I shared a Microsoft Teams message with helpful links and basic suggestions, then provided informal coaching when colleagues struggled. Over the following months, the team gradually integrated AI tools into their workflows. As the technology improved and new tools emerged, colleagues began exploring various AI options beyond MidJourney.

The workflow didn't get faster, but it got more capable. We could now create bespoke cocktail experiences that would have required expensive photoshoots. Instead of settling for stock imagery limitations, we spent the same time crafting precisely what each brief needed.

Cross-Channel Coordination Challenges

Success created new complications. Digital Merchandising began expecting AI-generated products integrated into realistic scenes—exponentially more complex than simple cocktail photography. Email and Social Creative teams needed format adaptations for their channels. Signage and Print teams hit resolution limits since AI images couldn't scale to their requirements.

The solution emerged through strategic patience rather than forced coordination. Rather than over-engineer perfect cross-channel asset sharing, leadership developed the "3 Easy Ingredients" cocktail strategy: Digital Creative handles trendy variations and specific cocktail pushes, while Signage/Print focuses on classic cocktails from major spirit categories using illustrated "Cocktail Corner" branded approaches.

This organic evolution actually worked better than forced standardization. Channels maintained their strengths while collaborating where it mattered most. Digital Creative now coordinates closely across web, display, email, and social to use shared AI-generated assets, while print maintains visual coherence without requiring identical imagery.

Implementation Realities and Ongoing Challenges

AI integration brought unexpected workflow complexities. Our shared MidJourney account creates bottlenecks when multiple designers work simultaneously. Finding specific generations becomes challenging amid team activity. I often push three generation variations per prompt, burning through "Fast" hours and getting relegated to "Relax" mode during deadlines.

Quality control remains intensive. AI-generated images still require significant correction for defects, lighting adjustments, and brand compliance. I've started gravitating toward illustration-heavy approaches to avoid excessive AI refinement cycles, while other team members have found their own AI workflow preferences.

The vendor relationship management expanded too. We began using external resources to handle complex product integration when internal capacity hit limits, though quality consistency became hit-or-miss.

Measurable Impact and Strategic Outcomes

Performance Results:

• Cocktail landing pages consistently outperform traditional approaches

• "Easy Margaritas": 5.3% conversion rate, +47% RPV

• "Cocktail Guide": 6.2% conversion rate, +61% RPV vs. previous version

• Enabled creation of additional cocktail aggregation pages that wouldn't have been feasible with traditional workflows

Organizational Change:

• 100% Digital Creative team AI adoption within 6 months

• Improved creative briefing processes across departments

• Enhanced collaboration between Digital Creative channels

• Strategic separation of digital vs. print cocktail marketing approaches

Business Alignment:

• Creative capabilities now match aggressive spirits marketing strategy

• Enhanced ability to respond to off-cadence requests without compromising quality

• Stronger support for Total Wine's 20% spirits market penetration growth

Lessons in Process Innovation

"Better output with same effort" can beat "faster output." While AI didn't save time, it enabled creative possibilities that directly supported business objectives. Sometimes capacity building matters more than efficiency gains.

Informal knowledge transfer beats formal training programs. Organic adoption with ad-hoc coaching created stronger team capabilities than structured rollouts would have achieved.

Strategic patience allows better solutions to emerge. Rather than forcing perfect cross-channel coordination, letting organizational strategy evolve naturally produced more sustainable workflows.

Innovation adoption creates new resource management challenges. Success with AI generated increased expectations and complexity that required ongoing workflow optimization and vendor relationship management.

The cocktail AI initiative demonstrated that process innovation under pressure requires balancing immediate problem-solving with long-term capability building. By focusing on creative enhancement rather than efficiency optimization, we built sustainable competitive advantages that continue supporting Total Wine's strategic growth in the spirits category.